Mermaid's Twilight
by Rika
Summary: A short little story about Emeralda's future.


Mermaid's Twilight  
  
  
A figure, standing lonely in the rain. The drops pattered steadily down,  
the windless day making the gentle downpour all the more gloomy. Head  
bowed, silent tears streaked down the face of the green-haired woman,  
joining the rain in moistening her gentle cheeks. Such sadness... if  
she'd known it would come to her like this, she might never have wished to  
be taken from the reactor.  
  
She was the last now... the last remaining from their wonderful group of  
heroes. One by one she'd seen them go, knowing her own life was going to  
far exceed theirs from the start. But it didn't make it any easier to bear  
when the appointed hours rolled forth and passed, taking her dear friends  
with them into eternity and memory. It was such a sick joke... live, fight,  
struggle and save the world for everyone.. and your just rewards were no  
better then the ones who cowered on the sidelines.  
  
*Stop it.* she thought to herself, willing such thinking to leave her. Elly  
would've gently chided her for it. She smiled inwardly. Citan would've given  
her a morality lecture and philosophical beliefs. Kim...  
  
She sighed, the tears still flowing steadily. She couldn't bring herself to  
think of him as Fei, even now. It was so hard..so unfair. She'd been the  
only one to be there with him, at the end. He should've gone in honor,  
not in a tiny house in the wilderness. But he'd wanted it this way..  
  
  
"Emeralda..." The woman sat quietly at the side of the bed, as the old man  
who lay within it croaked her name. She gently took his hand. Elly's  
unexpectedly early death had not been good for him.  
  
"I'm here...I'm here, Kim..."  
  
The aged Fei smiled.. even after the fighting ended, a true smile was such  
a rare thing for him to give. She couldn't help but smile back at him,  
though inside things were so choked. She knew this was the last for him.  
  
"I'm glad...you came. That..I could...see you...one last time. You  
haven't...haven't changed..."  
  
Emeralda lowered her head, nodding gently in response. She never dressed  
herself like this anymore. She'd worn the clothes she'd used back in those  
days, so he'd be sure to know her. Poor Sigurd had had trouble recognizing  
her the last time she'd seen him.  
  
Fei's hand gently squeezed.. "Ramsus...do you know...what happened..to him?"  
  
Ramsus... "He passed away last year, Kim...after Dominia died..." Inside,  
part of her winced in grief. This was truly it...he should have remembered  
that...  
  
Fei seemed to consider that... leaving Emeralda in an uncomfortable period  
of silence, before he finally spoke again.  
  
"I guess..this means we'll never...settle things. I'm a..little too tired  
now to fight.." A rasping chuckle, followed by hoarse coughing, Emeralda's  
eyes widening in sudden recognition of the moment, sitting up slightly.  
  
"Em..make sure...I'm with Elly..." Seeing her firm, affirmative nod, he  
smiled again.  
  
"I was..proud..to have you as my daughter..."  
  
Peacefully, in contrast to his life, Fei died.  
  
  
It was like the earth itself was mourning him..the sky crying in shared  
grief with her. She slowly lifted her head, brushing back her dampened  
hair, and looking at the little gravesite she'd finished filling in.  
So unglamorous. Just paltry stone crosses with his and Elly's names  
engraved to mark them. It was the best she was able to do for them.  
  
*The sands of time, flowing through the hourglasses of our lives*  
  
Who had said that to her? She thought it might've been old Maison, in  
one of the times she'd sat with him for tea and talked about things that  
were on her mind or bothering her. He had had a long, full life, and saw  
all of his desires fulfilled. Cultivated so much plain, simple wisdom.  
She'd learned a lot from him before he passed on from the world he loved  
so much.  
  
Sliding the ring she always wore off her finger, she hesitated for a moment,  
looking at it. Then stepped forwards and placed it under a rock atop Fei's  
grave. It'd been with her for so long now, gained from the Mermaid's Tear  
that Fei had brought out of Lahan with him. Now it would rest with Kim  
forever, returning to the earth of the place he called home.  
  
  
A day later, she paused outside a small house in Nisan, gazing up at it  
and thinking. She had said her final goodbyes to Kim...to all of them.  
The last ties to the past had been severed for her. It was time..finally  
time, to devote her whole being to the future. Elly would've been proud.  
  
She opened the door and stepped inside, giving a brilliant, happy smile to  
the two green-haired children who ran forth to greet her, stooping to hug  
them both, as the gentle man behind them watched, smiling a shared smile  
at his wife's return.  
  
"I'm home."  
  
  
by Rika  
  
http://tnt.dynodns.net/~rika (you can get my email address there)  
  
This story is *not* to be posted on rpgamer.com  
  



End file.
